Alpine Summit

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Is This What Liberal Leadership Looks Like?

A library in Berkeley, CA can't get it's checkout machines working because the CITY of Berkeley won't let it. Why? Because they're stupid hippies, that's why.

The checkout machines were formerly maintained by the manufacturer, a company called Checkpoint, but Checkpoint last year announced it was turning over its maintenance jobs to 3M.

Buying new machines or finding a new repair company would "have a big impact on our budget," Corbeil said. "At this point, we basically have no choice."

The Peace and Justice Commission does not see it that way. Commissioners said the library should try harder to find a company that complies with the Nuclear Free Berkeley Act.

A "peace and justice" commission by the city requires that all companies that do business in Berkeley must sign a "we hate nukes" petition first. 3M, the ones whom the manufacturer of the machines outsourced to, refuses to sign it and so the people of Berkeley must go without.

There are a couple of things we can take away from this story. First is the obvious fact that the city of Berkeley has spent thousands on these machines which are little more useful than paperweights. Second, the fact that the commission refuses to give a waiver for this and recommends they "try harder" to find a better solution is yet another example of liberals more interested in making problems for other people and forcing them to come up with the solution. Hardly inspired leadership.

During Obama's transition, Dr. Mark Dybul was initially asked to stay on as the coordinator of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for several months until a replacement could be found and confirmed. Because Dybul was the main architect of the program and one of its guiding visionaries, few were surprised by the offer. With Ambassador Randall Tobias, Dybul organized the most staggeringly successful foreign assistance effort since the Marshall Plan -- eventually helping support lifesaving AIDS therapy for more than 2 million people.

Of course, once Obama was inaugurated, he promptly asked for Dybul's resignation. Why? Not because he mismanaged the program or failed at his job in some significant way, but (presumably) because he was a Bush appointee.

...someone at State or the White House determined that sacrificing Dybul would appease a few vocal, liberal interest groups. One high-ranking Obama official admitted that the decision was "political." Yet the AIDS coordinator is not a typical political job, distributed as spoils, like some deputy assistant position at the Commerce Department. It involves directing a massive emergency operation to provide lifesaving drugs, through complex logistics, to some of the most distant places on Earth. And now that operation may be months without effective leadership -- undermining morale, complicating interagency cooperation, delaying new prevention initiatives and postponing budget decisions.

Politics as usual? Nope. Change we can believe in! I'm not one to cite opinion articles as actual news stories and there might be a larger story behind this whole thing, but I'm not holding my breath for CNN or MSNBC to cover it anytime soon unless there's a way to blame conservatives and/or Republicans. As rush says: "Obama is too big to fail." This just seems too petty and "politics as usual" to jive with all the rhetoric we've been getting from Obama... there HAS to be a reason for this, right? Right.

Monday, January 19, 2009

This Person Probably Voted for Obama

CNN, the bastion of quality news stories such as this, decided to showcase a mother hiding a terrible secret from her son.

I say this person probably voted for Obama because of stuff like this from the opening paragraph of the story:

The moment I saw that guinea pig's corpse, I made up my mind. I would not tell my son Checkers was dead ... at least not that night. Drew had five tests within the next two days. I wasn't going to let grief jeopardize his grades.

It occurs to me that only a liberal, of the type to fawn over Obama in the way some religious followers fawn over their respective deity, would think that another person was incapable of handling what they perceive to be a tough situation without some sort of intervention on their (the mom's) part. I can understand it might have been motherly over-protection, but for crying out loud let your kids grow up! We don't mature without adversities to overcome in our lives and this kid will face things a lot harder in life than his pet dying. The little things like that prepare him for the bigger things later on-- like the death of a parent (which she definitely won't be telling him about).

I may be wrong on this one, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if she did vote for Obama since some of his policies involve, among other things, "being his brother's keeper" whether his brother wants him to or not.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Why Fat People are Unattractive

I saw this video on YouTube. The subject is about kids teasing another kid with, shall we say, a bit of a weight problem. It leads me to wonder why the fat people are teased and ridiculed and what exactly others can do about it.

First of all, I'm all for people "sharpening" each other as "iron sharpens iron," but ridicule is not the way. People should not confuse that with admonition of fat people. The bottom line is people are fat because they can't keep food out of their gaping maws or aren't putting the right kind of food in their gaping maws. Either way, the result is the same.

It is wrong for a person to be fat in my opinion. It shows a severe lack of self control on their part. I take extreme issue when fat people demand bigger seats at movie theaters or that they be charged a single seat on an airplane even though they require two. I take issue with it because it is something they are responsible for and could fix,but would rather force others to accommodate them.

Instead of whining about how they aren't accepted for being fat, perhaps they should look to improve their own lives and bodies and view their social plight as evidence that perhaps they aren't living correctly. On the other side of the coin, instead of feeling guilty and trying to accommodate the whiners, the rest of us should be more inclined to admonish, or at least ignore, those who think they are entitled because they have already entitled themselves to too much. I say this because there is no excuse for someone to be fat. Period. Sure there's the "fat" gene excuse, but I certainly don't buy it. There are tons of resources to get in shape: online, or in magazines and books, home gyms, gym memberships, etc.

From what I can tell on TV, people are looking for the "I want to do whatever I want and not suffer the consequences" solution which I'm sorry to say does not exist in this world for anything including weight loss. Maybe that's the bigger problem with society in general?

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Hamas v. Israel: ONLY ON PAY PER VIEW!

So the latest incursion into sovereign Arab lands by the warmongering Jews has left hundreds of poor innocents dead by the hand of the Israelis for no good reason whatsoever.

At least, that's what impression you get from all the hoopla about what has been going on in the Gaza strip lately. I think it begs remembering that the Israelis VOLUNTARILY pulled out of Gaza several months (and over a year) ago as a part of the peace process. How were they rewarded for this? Mortar tubes and rocket platforms were moved closer in and attacks purposefully against civilian targets continued unabated. Now that that the Israelis are fighting back and taking an offensive position, "violence against Palestinians" is back in the news and all the media is enjoying talking about how this will hurt America's image abroad etc. I doubt that's really a concern for us at this point, but I digress.

Bottom line: One can't help but think there is some kind of underlying anti-Semitism going on in the media when Arabs bomb schools and churches (synagogues, I know) with the intent of killing unarmed civilians doesn't make news, but Israelis incidentally bombing schools and churches (mosques, I know) as collateral damage against MILITARY targets is somehow evil and requiring the UN to do what they do best: write very strongly worded letters politely asking everyone to stop fighting.

It's because these terrorists use schools and churches (mosques, I know) as cover for themselves that these places are now being "attacked" by the Israelis. If I remember my Geneva conventions correctly, non-military targets stop being non-military targets when they are used for military purposes, i.e. militants putting a weapons cache in a school or zoo.

But then, why would the media want to bother with anything as un-sales worthy as the truth or perspective when they can doctor photos and concentrate on how many civilians Israel is killing rather than why they might be so pissed off?

Luckily, Israel is sending and envoy to Egypt to broker some kind of deal to halt the importation of arms and explosives into Palestine which, had the democratically elected terrorist group been more proactive about, could have prevented this whole thing.

As far as I'm concerned, the blood of all those innocents in Palestine is on the hands of Hamas-- not Israel.